Justice Breyer's dissent misreads DC law?

Posted by David Hardy · 10 July 2008 03:43 PM

At Concurring Opinions, Prof. Mike O'Shea has a post demonstrating just that. Breyer's dissent argued that the DC law was a reasonable regulation, since he thought militia purposes were the most important aspect of the 2A, and a person could still own and practice with rifles. But as Prof. O'Shea points out, DC law bans machineguns -- and defines them as any semiauto that can accept a magazine of more than 12 rounds. Effectively, this ban every American militiary rifle made in the last 40-50 years (ever since they retired the M-1 Garand in favor of the M-14).

This law is even worse than that -- it also bans the WWII M1 Carbine (which used a detachable 15-round magazine in WWII; 30-round magazine in Korea), and even the late-WWI M1903 Springfield with the Pedersen Device modification (which converted the bolt-action battle rifle into a 40-round semi-automatic rifle).

Plus, of course, it bans all semi-automatic pistols, including the WWI Colt M1911 and Luger.